• Wearable Robotics for Gait Rehabilitation - Ryan Farris (Boyer 130):  The field of physical medicine and rehabilitation increasingly incorporates advanced technology to improve patient outcomes. Over the past decade, wearable robotic devices have become part of this trend, providing enhanced gait therapy and greater functional mobility to individuals with spinal cord injury or stroke. Dr. Ryan Farris spent nearly a decade in the med tech industry developing such technologies and continues his research now at Messiah University. He will describe his journey of inventing and commercializing medical robotic systems and will introduce some promising concepts currently under development in the Messiah Collaboratory.
• Thriving Together: A Unique University–Community Partnership - Shelly Skinner & Brian Smith (Boyer 131):  In 2020 Messiah University secured a major Lilly Endowment grant for Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice. This exciting program connects the University with regional congregations in an effort to:
  • deepen and broaden our understandings of the relationship between race and Christian practice in our region, and
  • cultivate a commitment to the practice of racial justice and reconciliation among congregations in Central Pennsylvania.
  Join us to learn about Thriving Together, hear from alumni participating with their churches, and meet student fellows supporting these congregations.
• Science and shalom- body, mind, and soul integration - Mindy Smith & Doug Miller (Boyer 134): This session will include information on how science supports the God’s amazing design of integrated body, mind, and soul. In addition, we’ll share personal and practical ideas for pursuing shalom in our daily lives.
• Studying the Messengers of the Universe - Abaz Kryemadhi (Boyer 137):  This session will discuss research efforts at Messiah University to understand objects such as black holes, supernovas and Big Bang era streams of dark matter. With student researchers, Abaz built detectors to “see” the particles arriving. We can then reconstruct information about the objects they come from. This work contributes directly to the field of Astroparticle Physics, but our detectors also have surprising applications for medicine and the solar technologies of the future.
• Where did everybody go? The state of Christianity, the Church, and worship in the U.S. (2022) - Doug Curry (Parmer Cinema): Most of us have recognized attendance shifts in church attendance in the last 5-10 years, and some have attributed most of these shifts to the global pandemic. Yet, is the pandemic a primary cause of these shifts, or simply an ‘important contributor’? Utilizing research statistics gleaned from the renowned Barna Group, and anecdotal research from his current undergraduate and graduate students in Christian worship, Dr. Douglas Curry (Worship Ministries Pastor/Faculty in Music & Worship) will display these findings and lead a discussion about the ramifications of church attendance shifts and developments in Christian worship.

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